


Call Me But Love

by ricekrispyjoints



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst with a Happy Ending, Friends to Lovers, Happy Ending, Light Angst, M/M, Makeouts, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Pining, Soulmates, Time Skips, Trans Character, Trans Male Character, Trans Oikawa Tooru, all my faves are trans, bc of who i am as a person, find them and earn my undying love, my city now, there are two hidden puns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-24
Updated: 2018-09-24
Packaged: 2019-07-17 06:01:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16089542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ricekrispyjoints/pseuds/ricekrispyjoints
Summary: “When I meet my Soulmate, I hope she’s smarter than you,” Iwaizumi says.They’re thirteen, and Oikawa doesn’t think that believing in aliens makes him stupid at all, but he’s less bothered by the insult and more that Iwaizumi says “she”.“Your Soulmate’s a girl?” Oikawa asks hesitantly.“Well, my Mark came in yesterday, and it’s a girl’s name, so…”“Oh."***Oikawa's Soulmark says Hajime, but Iwaizumi's doesn't say Tooru.





	Call Me But Love

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Frenchibi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Frenchibi/gifts).



> I had this idea for a soulmates AU and was like "hmm which ship should I write this for" before going "who are you kidding, it's iwaoi or bust"
> 
> Thanks to Frenchibi for reading the rough draft of this and giving me strength. this one's for u xoxo
> 
> I spent 45 mins trying to think of a title and I ended up quoting Romeo and Juliet (when Juliet says "a rose by any other name would smell just as sweet" and then tells Romeo to change his name from Montague and he says "Call me but love, and I'll be new baptized" (Act II, Scene II)
> 
> ANYWAY pls enjoy

“When I meet my Soulmate, I hope she’s smarter than you,” Iwaizumi says.

They’re thirteen, and Oikawa doesn’t think that believing in aliens makes him stupid at all, but he’s less bothered by the insult and more that Iwaizumi says “she”.

“Your Soulmate’s a girl?” Oikawa asks hesitantly.

“Well, my Mark came in yesterday, and it’s a girl’s name, so…”

“Oh. Okay.”

“What’s yours?”

“Don’t have one yet,” Oikawa whines.

“Well, I am a little older. You’ll get yours soon. Wanna go play volleyball in the park?”

Oikawa nods, eager to change the subject.

 

During puberty, usually around age thirteen, a Soulmark appears on your chest, right above your heart. It has the given name of your Soulmate, the person you’re supposed to be perfectly matched with.

Some people never find their Soulmate, others date around and bide their time until finding their match.

Still others find that their Soulmate isn’t necessarily a romantic partner, and fulfill their match in other ways, such as a best friend or a business partner.

Some unlucky souls never find their Soulmate, or their Soulmate doesn’t want the same kind of relationship they had hoped for.

Oikawa’s parents are Soulmates, and although they’ve told him that not every Soulpair marry, Oikawa knows that’s what he wants. He wants a life partner in every way.

He’s quite the romantic, for a thirteen-year-old.

 

Two months later, when Oikawa’s Soulmark comes in, he cries.

Right there, burned into the skin right over his heart, is the delicate kanji that forms the name Hajime, and Oikawa _knows_ that it belongs to his best friend. He doesn’t want any other Hajime.

Oikawa knows, despite his youth, that he loves him, and he wishes desperately that Iwaizumi’s Mark held his name.

But it doesn’t, because Oikawa isn’t a girl—he _isn’t –_ and so, five days before his fourteenth birthday, Oikawa Tooru realizes he’s an Unrequited.

 

Oikawa and Iwaizumi met when they were eight and Iwaizumi’s family moved into the neighborhood. Oikawa had been shy, but Iwaizumi blundered through with his toothless grin and brash laughter.

After only a couple of weeks, Oikawa decided that they were going to be best friends for life.

Iwaizumi agreed, and they made a spit-pact on it (the most solemn of eight-year-olds’ promises).

Some of the other kids in their class, who knew Oikawa before that summer, were mean to him. They called him a girl, called him some other name.

Oikawa had long ago learned that crying only made them laugh harder, so he held it in.

But only just.

“Why do you hang out with Oikawa-chan?” the lead bully taunted Iwaizumi. “She’s such a loser.”

“He is not!” Iwaizumi cried, and shoved the other boy to the ground.

Their teacher dashed over. “Iwaizumi-kun! No pushing! Apologize to Manami-kun.”

“No! I won’t. Not until he apologizes to Oikawa.”

Manami wailed that he didn’t do anything wrong, just asked a simple question, and despite their teacher’s attempts to reconcile the two, Iwaizumi refused to budge, and so did Manami.

Oikawa felt terribly awkward, and definitely guilty that Iwaizumi got in trouble on his behalf, but he also felt so happy and maybe a little proud that his friend had defended him so adamantly. Oikawa _used_ to have good friends—or he thought he did— but after this summer, most of them had ditched him.

Both Iwaizumi’s and Manami’s parents were called, and Iwaizumi’s grounded him for three days for being violent and also rude to his teacher.

The next day at school, though, Iwaizumi is unrepentant.

“It was worth it,” he assured Oikawa. “You’re my best friend, and they can’t talk about you like that.”

“It’s okay, Iwaizumi,” Oikawa sniffled. “I don’t care what they say when I have you.”

“Well, still. If the other kids are gonna be mean to you and call you -chan even though you’re a boy, then I’ll be -chan, too.”

Oikawa smiled brightly. “Iwaizumi-chan!”

“Nah, that’s too much. Just call me Iwa-chan, okay?”

“Sounds good, Iwa-chan.”

 

It’s a matter of personal preference, but there are cover-up patches available to cover your Soulmark if you’re a more private person. Many people who haven’t yet met their match prefer to hide it.

It’s a topic of much gossip and speculation, especially in middle and high school, and so more timid kids, or those who just don’t want drama in their lives, cover up their Marks.

Once Oikawa’s mark comes in, he knows that he has to keep it hidden at any cost. The team changes together, and while Oikawa changes in a stall, he still lives in fear that someone will catch a glimpse and find out that _his_ Mark says Hajime and Hajime’s _doesn’t_ say Tooru.

He can’t bear the thought of Iwaizumi discovering that Oikawa is his Unrequited Soulmate.

He will treasure whatever kind of relationship he can get from Iwaizumi, and he will not let their Marks cause tension or awkwardness or, worst-case-scenario, rejection or repulsion.

Iwaizumi keeps his mark covered, too, as does about half of the team.

It’s not weird to cover it, and it’s best for everyone that Oikawa’s stays covered.

Oikawa has enough to hide, but at least no one will think hiding _this_ is _weird_.

 

When they get to high school, Oikawa decides that his coping mechanisms are just not enough. He still daydreams about Hajime telling him he doesn’t care about his Soulmark, that he just wants Oikawa, and they’ll run off into the sunset together, or something.

But after two years of the school’s main subject of gossip being about Soulmates, of casual conversations where curious girls ask Iwaizumi and Oikawa about their Marks, he knows he’s lying to himself.

Iwaizumi, for all he is devoted to his best friend, wants to find his Soulmate. He somehow cares about _her_ , even though he doesn’t know a thing about her! Oikawa hopes she’s ugly and a bad student and bad at sports and every other mean-spirited thing he can think of. 

For all he wants his friend to be happy, he wants Iwaizumi to be happy with _him_.

They meet Hanamaki and Matsukawa on the volleyball team, and having a small group instead of just him and Iwaizumi against the world helps.

It puts their friendship into perspective, some. They grow close with Hanamaki and Matsukawa but they’re not _as_ close, and Oikawa starts to think that maybe, just maybe, he can still have a special relationship with Iwaizumi, even if he’s an Unrequited.

What he _can’t_ handle though, is Iwaizumi’s spike in popularity. The other athletic teams all not-so-secretly want to steal him away for their team, and when he starts to really fill out and put on muscle mass in second year, the girls take notice, too.

Oikawa decides to make it his mission to make sure that no girl will want Iwaizumi by focusing all the attention on himself.

Oikawa begins to flirt with just about any girl that moves within a five-kilometer radius of Aoba Johsai, and as hoped for, Iwaizumi gets incredibly annoyed. The added bonus is that he also gets a bit violent with Oikawa, and his popularity amongst the female population of Seijoh decreases rapidly with each punch, shove, and volleyball to the face he hurls at Oikawa, and Oikawa feels a little safer.

Maybe if he steals away all the girls’ hearts, shows them what a brute Iwaizumi is, they won’t have time to wonder if the Hajime on their chest is _Oikawa’s_ Hajime.

When they lose to Shiratorizawa _again_ in the Interhigh their third year, Oikawa does some serious introspection.

Not only does he analyze his entire volleyball career, but he starts to look beyond. He starts by considering the team’s interpersonal relationships, and his role as the captain to best facilitate these relationships.

He debates whether he should shoulder this blame: Iwaizumi always tells him it’s the whole team, not just Oikawa, who wins or loses. And that, of course, is true.

But what if Oikawa is hindering the team because of the way he treats others? Specifically, the way he treats Iwaizumi?

They’re still close, impossibly so, and yet Oikawa knows that his secret—Hajime’s name written on his skin—is keeping them apart. More precisely, the way Oikawa has decided to address (or not) this fact.

Over the past two and a half years, he has wormed his way in between Iwaizumi and any girl who he could have possibly dated; he has interfered in his relationships; he has interrupted Iwaizumi’s conversations with teammates about Soulmates just because he couldn’t bear to hear any more about _her_ , about what Iwaizumi hoped she would be like.

He couldn’t bear it.

And he figured that Iwaizumi had at least an inkling that Oikawa was meddling, but so far, he hadn’t confronted him about it.

And if Oikawa wanted to avoid such a confrontation, he knew that he had to shape up.

He started to tone down his—yes, he could admit it—obnoxious flirting, he stopped making every Soulmates conversation about him, and though he felt like he was being stabbed in the chest with an icicle, he let girls talk to Iwaizumi without bombing their conversation.

As the Spring Interhigh approached, he was finally starting to accept that maybe, just _maybe_ , Iwaizumi Hajime just wasn’t meant to be _his_.

That there was maybe some other Hajime out there for him.

Just like there was some girl out there for Iwaizumi.

And it hurt, god did it _burn_ , but maybe letting go just a little bit would be the healthiest for them both.

 

They lose to fucking _Karasuno_ in the Spring Interhigh, and Oikawa feels his soul shatter into a thousand pieces.

The only dream he had ever had – besides Hajime being _his_ – was to make it to Nationals, and he failed.

The team failed, he failed – it doesn’t matter how you spin it, because at the end of the day he had officially lost both of his dreams.

 

When they choose their universities, Oikawa weighs his options carefully, having been offered sports scholarships at a few schools.

Iwaizumi had a couple offers as well, and Oikawa found ways to justify why he crossed those schools off his own list.

If he was going to keep Iwaizumi in his life, it couldn’t go on like this. He wasn’t good for Iwaizumi. He would get in the way of his friend’s happiness, purposefully or not, and Iwaizumi deserved better.

 

On graduation day, Iwaizumi hugs him, and they’re both a little teary eyed.

“You’re my best friend,” Iwaizumi says, locking eyes with Oikawa. “And just because we’re going to different schools doesn’t mean I’m going to let you forget that. You’re stuck with me, remember?”

Oikawa smiles, a little sadly. “I know, Iwa-chan.”

“I’m not gonna let you break our spit pact. We’ll keep in touch, or I’ll kick your ass.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Oikawa laughs. It’s a little watery, but Iwaizumi doesn’t say anything.

They embrace once more, before shaking hands with their classmates, teachers, and eventually finding their parents and heading home.

 

 

“I’m so proud of you,” Oikawa’s mom tells him, when she drops him off at his dorm. “My baby boy is in university! Ichiro, dear, take a picture of us, would you?”

They pose for photos, his parents help him organize his school things, and then they leave.

He locks the door behind them, collapses on his bed, and sighs.

He’s never felt so alone, but maybe this is the fresh start he needs.

New team, new friends, and maybe… maybe, a new Hajime.

 

Iwaizumi was very much not kidding about keeping in touch, and despite the fact that they text near daily, he actually convinces Oikawa to set up a weekly phone call a few weeks into their first semester.

They’re both in Tokyo, and soon Iwaizumi has them organizing a bi-weekly in-person hang out session. Once, they get Hanamaki and Matsukawa to join them, but usually it’s just the two of them.

They take turns going to each other’s neighborhood, and soon have a comfortable routine and the baristas at the two cafés they frequent know them and their orders by heart.

One girl at the café near Oikawa eyes Iwaizumi a little too much for Oikawa’s taste, but he promised himself he wouldn’t interfere in Iwaizumi’s love life again, so he lets Iwaizumi handle it himself.

He never talks to her beyond ordering and saying thank you, so Oikawa figures that the name on Iwaizumi’s chest isn’t Sana.

(To say he is relieved would be an understatement.)

 

Throughout their first semester, Oikawa gets to know his teammates, gets along in classes alright, and does not meet anyone named Hajime.

His distance from Iwaizumi stings, but over time it dulls into something manageable. He still feels a pang in his chest when he gets a text from Iwaizumi, and he probably looks a little moon-eyed when he tells his teammates about meeting up with his best friend.

Some of his senpai begin teasing him about his “dates,” and they ask if he’s seeing his Soulmate.

Oikawa’s heart positively aches, but he laughs it off as best as he can.

 

Near the end of the semester, with finals looming over them both, they’re on the phone at quarter to two in the morning.

It wasn’t a planned phone call, but they were both up and needed a study break.

When Iwaizumi texted “phone?”, Oikawa didn’t even hesitate before pressing the call button.

They make their usual small talk, talk about which finals spell their doom, and then, Iwaizumi breaks the mold.

“Let’s play twenty questions.”

“What?” Oikawa snorts. “We already know like, everything about each other.”

“I mean yeah, but that’s why we gotta get creative. Not _boring_ twenty questions, but like, ‘If the aliens came to abduct you and you only had sixty seconds to grab stuff from your room before you leave, what do you grab?’”

“Damn, that _is_ a good question… Well obviously, a volleyball. And my phone plus a charger.”

“You think they use the same outlets in space?”

“Well, it’s probably easier to find or make an adapter than make a new charger…”

“Fine. What else?”

“Well, I’d have to grab you, of course. Can’t go into space without my best friend.”

Iwaizumi doesn’t reply immediately, and Oikawa starts to panic that he said something weird.

“Dumbass,” Iwaizumi says fondly.

“My turn,” Oikawa says. “It’s the zombie apocalypse and your team is the last five people you’ve texted. How fucked are you?”

“Well you’re the most recent, so we’re already screwed,” Iwaizumi laughs.

“Rude!”

“And then I texted, uh, hang on—” Iwaizumi checks his texts, presumably, before coming back. “Okay, so I have you, my chem lab partner, Okada, my mom, and then it’s our group chat with Hanamaki and Matsukawa. So I guess my team has five people?”

“Six. I’m there twice.”

“Yeah but you’re only one person.”

“That’s my clone.”

“Oh my god, then we’re extra fucked. Not a single one of us is getting out of this alive.”

“Your mom might,” Oikawa laughs. “She can be pretty fearsome. Plus she’s a nurse, so she could like, I dunno, heal herself if she gets injured?”

“What’s she gonna do, though, inject them with leftover flu vaccines?” Iwaizumi asks. “Being a nurse lacks offensive power. She’d never outlast them without killing some off.”

They spend at least another fifteen minutes hammering out the details of how they would do battle, and the untimely demise they would each face.

(“Your clone would die first,” Iwaizumi says seriously. “Because I would kill him. I can’t handle two of you.”

“Mean, Iwa-chan!”)

Finally, the giggles die down, and Iwaizumi brings them back to their game.  

“Alright, alright. Imagine if we got Freaky-Friday’d. Body swapped, y’know? What’s the first thing you do?”

“Uh…” Oikawa stalls. His gut reaction response is ‘Panic, because then you’ll know what my body looks like.’ And then he realizes… has he ever actually _told_ Iwaizumi?

“Um,” he tries again. “You uh, you know I’m… you know I’m trans, right?”

“I kind of guessed,” Iwaizumi says awkwardly. “I mean, obviously I knew it was … I didn’t want to bring it up if you didn’t. It didn’t seem relevant, and of course if I was wrong then it would’ve been even weirder… and I didn’t want you to think that I figured it out because you didn’t pass or something…”

“You… how long have you known?”

“I had my suspicions in middle school that you were different somehow, but by high school I noticed the binder and the fact that you didn’t change with the rest of us…”

“Ah. Yeah, well…”

“It’s fine. Like I said, I didn’t think it was relevant, and that if it was, you would tell me.”

“Well, thanks, I guess. For being so understanding.”

“You’re my best friend, Oikawa. You don’t have to thank me for that.”

“I want to. I really… care about you. You’re my best friend too, you know.”

“Obviously,” Iwaizumi smirks. “So, we’re body swapped. What’s the first thing you do?”

 

The rest of the phone call is light-hearted and silly, and while they don’t make it to twenty questions (Iwaizumi falls asleep at fourteen), Oikawa feels light and less stressed when he whispers a ‘good night’ to Iwaizumi and hangs up.

He didn’t expect Iwaizumi to be weird, but it does feel kind of nice to have told him. A relief he didn’t know he needed.

 

After the phone call, though, Iwaizumi seems distant.

He seems distracted, and every time Oikawa asks what’s up, he just says he’s busy, it’s finals, don’t worry.

He doesn’t reply to most of Oikawa’s texts, even after finals period is over, and is extremely quiet on the next week’s phone call.

It’s like pulling teeth getting more than just a grunt or a distracted “Huh?” as a reply.

Oikawa is, understandably, panicking. Things seemed _fine_ on the phone! Did Iwaizumi think about it and decide that he really _was_ freaked out by it or something? What was going on?

Their next in-person meet up is set for three days after the awkward phone call, and Oikawa almost wants to cancel.

Something is wrong. Something is weird, and Iwaizumi won’t talk about it, and that makes Oikawa nervous and for the first time, scared to see his best friend.

Iwaizumi insists that he’s coming to the café by Oikawa’s apartment, though, and so with a sigh and more than a little reluctance, Oikawa walks the four blocks.

He finds Iwaizumi sitting at their usual table, and when the waitress sees him walk in, she smiles and says she’ll get their drinks.

Oikawa sits down, and the silence is intensely awkward.

Oikawa and Iwaizumi have _never_ had awkward silence.

Iwaizumi scratches his chest, where his Mark is.

Oikawa’s stomach flips.

Oh god. What if this isn’t about Oikawa’s coming out after all? What if… no. He can’t think about it.

Instead, he tries to muddle through small talk. He’s talking about their semester break training program that their coaches devised, when Iwaizumi blurts, “I need to ask you something.”

Oikawa stops, mid-sentence, and just stares.

“Could we maybe head somewhere a little more… private? Where we can talk?” Iwaizumi asks. He scratches at the Mark again.

This is progress, at least, Oikawa thinks. They’ll get whatever the issue is out in the open, and Oikawa can know if he’s about to lose his best friend, because at this point, it must be something serious.

They walk in silence back to Oikawa’s dorm.

When they arrive, they take off their shoes and make their way mechanically to Oikawa’s tiny couch. They sit just about as far apart as the loveseat will allow.

Oikawa fidgets, picks at his cuticles.

Silence.

He resituates himself to sit on the armrest, and pulls his knees into his chest, resting his chin on his knees.

Silence.

Oikawa sighs, decides that position isn’t comfortable, and settles back in on the couch cushion, tucking one leg under himself and letting the other dangle over the edge.  

“It’s… about my Soulmark,” Iwaizumi says finally.

Oikawa is pretty sure he’s stopped breathing. _He found her_. Iwaizumi finally met his Soulmate and he was about to confirm that Oikawa is an Unrequited. He never had a chance.

Oikawa forces himself to breathe, to not say a thing. And he certainly won’t cry about it.

“I don’t exactly know how to say this, but um, I think… that is, I have a suspicion. After we talked, on the phone I mean, when you said… I sort of thought about our friendship, and y’know, how I knew. About you. And I realized something that, okay, at first seemed kind of crazy? But now…”

“Hajime? What is it?” Oikawa’s heart is about to explode. Where the hell was Iwaizumi going with this? And would he please just _spit it out_ , because this suspense was carving years off Oikawa’s life.

Iwaizumi unfastens the top three buttons of his shirt and pulls the fabric aside.

Oikawa feels his heart do a sort of hiccup. What is he doing?

With a bit of a wince, Iwaizumi asks, “Was this your birthname?”

Oikawa’s heart stops.

There, on Iwaizumi’s chest, is the kanji for the name that he abandoned at the age of seven. That, with his parents’ help, he legally changed the summer before high school.

He hasn’t seen that name in years.

He was kind of hoping he never would again.

No. _No._

This was a sick joke.

“Tooru?” Iwaizumi prompts.

Stunned, Oikawa can only nod.

Iwaizumi takes a deep breath. “And um, can I ask… what name you have?”

Oikawa is getting the feeling that Iwaizumi already knows.

“It’s… yours,” he says softly.

A slow smile blooms across Iwaizumi’s face. “Can I see it?”

“I… I thought I was an Unrequited,” Oikawa says, his voice thick with impending tears.

He’s just wearing a t-shirt, so he pulls the collar down and peels off the patch he wears to cover his Mark.

“I thought I was supposed to be straight,” Iwaizumi laughs.

Oikawa can’t help it; he laughs too. The tears in his eyes spill over, and he wipes at them through his laughter.

When they stop laughing, Oikawa feels like he should say something, but he has no idea what.

“So, uh,” he tries eloquently. “What… what does this, er, mean? For us?”

Iwaizumi takes a deep breath. “Well, I’ve always hoped that my Soulmate would be a… romantic partner. That we would, y’know, get married one day. That kind of thing.”

“And now that you know it’s me?” Oikawa asks, his voice small.

“Especially now that I know it’s you, Tooru.”

Oikawa might cry again. “Iwa-chan? Can we be boyfriends now?”

 “Only if I get to kiss you,” he says with a grin.

“Deal.”

 

Kissing Iwaizumi Hajime—Hajime, his soulmate, his best friend – is very different from what he expected.

He is by no means disappointed, but it’s not what he had pictured.  

He had always imagined kissing Iwaizumi would be a little rough; that Iwaizumi would take control, maybe pin him to a wall or something.

Instead, the kiss is hesitant, soft, and light. Iwaizumi’s hands reach out toward Oikawa, but they hover, as though he’s afraid he’ll break Oikawa if he touches him.

Oikawa, however, has waited too long, has despaired too much of never having this, to let Iwaizumi be so unsure.

So instead, he takes the lead. He scoots closer to Iwaizumi, crowding him into the cushions of the loveseat. He threads one hand through Iwaizumi’s short, thick hair, and loops his other arm around Iwaizumi’s neck.

He presses his lips to Iwaizumi’s insistently, coaxing Iwaizumi’s mouth open to meet his. Taking Iwaizumi’s hands, Oikawa positions them on his own hips, pressing them firmly into his body.

He wants Iwaizumi’s touch, _needs_ Iwaizumi to know that Oikawa _always_ wants Iwaizumi to touch him.  

Oikawa slips his tongue into Iwaizumi’s mouth, and Iwaizumi draws in a sharp gasp of surprise, but apparently the presence of tongue has flipped a switch in Iwaizumi, that he is allowed to want this, that it’s real and it’s good and it’s what they both want.

His hands begin to move, slowly but purposefully, up Oikawa’s back and one finally finds its way into Oikawa’s hair, mirroring Oikawa’s own hands.

Now that Iwaizumi is, apparently, much more into this, Oikawa takes it upon himself to crawl into Iwaizumi’s lap. Now that Oikawa is significantly higher than Iwaizumi, he can control the angle of the kiss much more easily, and deepens it as best as he can.

His tongue goes deep into Iwaizumi’s mouth before pulling back, and Iwaizumi gives chase.

They push and pull like this, an exchange of tongues and lips and sighs, for long minutes.

Slowly, they break their kiss. Oikawa places a few long kisses on Iwaizumi’s cheeks, his forehead, his eyelids.

Eventually, they rest with their foreheads together, their eyes closed, and their breathing synchronized and calm.

The tension is gone, and they simply exist in a moment of floating, peaceful silence.

Neither knows how long they stay this way, but the light outside is getting weaker.

Someone’s stomach rumbles, and they breathe out a little quiet laugh.

“I’ve waited so long for this,” Oikawa whispers. “I didn’t think I would ever get to have you like this.”

“I’m sorry I made you wait so long,” Iwaizumi replies. “But to be fair, my Soulmark misled me. How was I ever supposed to guess that this name could have ever been you?”

“It wasn’t really ever me,” Oikawa says quietly.

Iwaizumi brushes Oikawa’s bangs out of his eyes. “Well, I think this has taught us a very important lesson.”

“And what’s that?”

“My Soulmark is a transphobic asshole,” Iwaizumi says.

Oikawa laughs, but then an idea comes to him.

“Wait here,” he says, and he gets off of Iwaizumi’s lap and dashes to his desk drawers.

He comes back with a permanent marker.

Iwaizumi shakes his head with a grin, but pulls his shirt aside to give Oikawa space to write.

“It won’t be perfect, but…”

It’s definitely sloppy, but he does the best he can to turn the kanji there into the one for Tooru.

The strokes definitely don’t line up right, but Oikawa doesn’t care.

Already, it’s a marked improvement.

They kiss again, briefly but warmly.

“Alright. Dinner?” Oikawa suggests. “I’ve got ramen, or ramen. Take your pick.”

“Wow, you really know how to impress a guy.”

“Just one of my many amazing features that are now yours to enjoy in their full capacity,” Oikawa says.

“Oh yeah? And what other features do I now have access to in their _full capacity_?” Iwaizumi says, quirking an eyebrow.

“Hmm, you’ll just have to find out on your own.”

“That sounds like it’ll take a while.”

“Probably,” Oikawa says coyly.

“Maybe even a lifetime.”

“I like the sound of that.”

**Author's Note:**

> You can thank Frenchibi for the amount of crying Oikawa in here :)))  
> thank you for reading, kudos and comments sustain me~
> 
> come find me on tumblr as ricekrispyjoints, if you're into that kind of thing


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